1440p Worth over the reduction in FPS ?

[UsiGX]

Hey yall,

I am planning to build a gaming rig and have pretty much decided on everything that I'm going to want but just unsure about whether to stick to 1080p or move upto 1440p.

The graphics card I'm going to have is the GTX 970 which is anyways important even if you're gaming on 1080p let alone 1440p. But I'm currently wondering if 1440p is worth the loss in fps I'm going to witness apparently. I have used only 24 inch displays for 1080p fyi (no 27"), so will the ppi improvement be significant enough to make it up for less frames ?

Oh and btw I am more leaned towards a 25 inch 1440p screen such as the Acer g257hu which is just under $300. 27 inches might be too big since I sit close to the computer and I don't really want to get Qnix (the rest are very expensive).

Weight-age:
Display improvement > FPS loss (Feasible) OR
Display improvement < FPS loss (Not feasible)

It's difficult to find solid benchmarks for 1440p for the GTX 970.

Bottom Line : Is 1440p significant improvement from 24" 1080p for Gaming ONLY ? And is it worth the reduction in performance ?

 

[tential]

I say yes. Higher res is better. There are tons of easily available 970 benchmarks. I'd say go as high res as you can afford. Even using 1440p vsr on my 1080p screen looks nice. And I'm sure if you plan any older games that dsr to 1440p will look nice.

I don't know though I'm just giving my opinion but I think 1080p is over for those of us at the higher end buying graphics cards at this level.

 

[Destiny]

Your GTX 970 should handle most 1440 games fine - when you go for that resolution you are shooting for eye candy and having to use less or no AA (which cause lower FPS when you use it for 1080p resolutions)... 27" is the perfect size for 1440.

 

[BFG10K]

PPI changes - unless they're huge (e.g. 4x, 1080p -> 2160p at the same display size) - are not worth as the performance cost is large while the IQ improvement is minimal.

I dropped from 1600p to a 1080p display and the image quality looks 90% as good (subjectively) to me. Definitely not the "minecraft lego bricks" nonsense spouted online.

But I get twice the performance now, which means 1080p + 2xSSAA runs the same speed as 1600p + 0xAA, but looks much better. Or I can do 1080p + 4xMSAA which still looks better but also runs much faster.

 

[Piroko]

7 out of the top 10 steam games would profit from 1440p and even the other three (CS:GO, GTA5, Ark) should still run fine depending on settings. 1440p isn't that hard on your GPU if you don't chase max settings and it's simply better for everything else.

Back to playing WOWS in window mode while watching a video on the same screen (27" 1440p).

 

[wasabiman123]

same dilemma, sticking with 1080p 120hz until 4k is viable at 100+fps.
970 here

 

[UsiGX]

I dropped from 1600p to a 1080p display and the image quality looks 90% as good (subjectively) to me. Definitely not the "minecraft lego bricks" nonsense spouted online.

What were the display size you used for 1600p and 1080p ?

 

[BFG10K]

What were the display size you used for 1600p and 1080p ?

30" 2560x1600 and 27" 1920x1080, about a meter away. No display scaling / document zooming / enlarged fonts with either.

Some claim 24" is the usable limit for 1080p, but this is untrue. I use a pair of 24" 1080p displays at work, but I prefer coming home to my single 27". The bigger display is more immersive so it looks better overall.

And again, the visual quality loss from the PPI reduction is marginal.

 

[Insomniator]

The Acer g257hu is the exact monitor I'm interested in, I sit too close and have too little space for a 27" screen. Would much rather have the higher PPI and space on my desk.

Debating waiting for a free sync or g sync version to come out though... seems silly to not have ANY of the argued about features these days (sync, 120/144hz). Can't beat the price on the Acer though, which has the same panel as the Dell that is $400.

 

[Ma_Deuce]

I went from a 23-24" 1080p to a 27" 1440p monitor. To keep my framerates similar, I just stopped using or lowered my amount of AA. I don't notice a difference in framerates and IMO 1440 w/o AA looks better to me than 1080p w/ AA.

I think that the PPI of a 25" 1440p screen would look great and be worth the trade offs.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

I never understood the hyping of the 970 as a 1440p card, at least if you're into AAA games. Mine is right at the borderline of being powerful enough for 1080p ultra locked 60 fps in GTA V, Far Cry 4, and Dragon Age Inquisition, and I have to turn settings down to mostly high (with hairworks off) to get that kind of performance in Witcher 3. I suppose if you play easy to run shooters like Battlefield or Call of Duty the 970 is a great 1440p card, but I don't see it for AAA gaming, running something at 45 fps looks terrible to me.

 

[tential]

I never understood the hyping of the 970 as a 1440p card, at least if you're into AAA games. Mine is right at the borderline of being powerful enough for 1080p ultra locked 60 fps in GTA V, Far Cry 4, and Dragon Age Inquisition, and I have to turn settings down to mostly high (with hairworks off) to get that kind of performance in Witcher 3. I suppose if you play easy to run shooters like Battlefield or Call of Duty the 970 is a great 1440p card, but I don't see it for AAA gaming, running something at 45 fps looks terrible to me.

All depends. I don't notice 45 FPS at all and prefer the eye candy. Running at 90+ fps on a AAA game makes no sense to me. I'm not playing DA: I for twitch shooting, I'm playing for eye candy and story.

 

[Insomniator]

I never understood the hyping of the 970 as a 1440p card, at least if you're into AAA games. Mine is right at the borderline of being powerful enough for 1080p ultra locked 60 fps in GTA V, Far Cry 4, and Dragon Age Inquisition, and I have to turn settings down to mostly high (with hairworks off) to get that kind of performance in Witcher 3. I suppose if you play easy to run shooters like Battlefield or Call of Duty the 970 is a great 1440p card, but I don't see it for AAA gaming, running something at 45 fps looks terrible to me.

But it wouldn't look as bad if you have G/F sync... also I would guess that in most cases 1440p/high is better looking than 1080p/ultra (just guessing, I've never used 1440p).

 

[SteveGrabowski]

All depends. I don't notice 45 FPS at all and prefer the eye candy. Running at 90+ fps on a AAA game makes no sense to me. I'm not playing DA: I for twitch shooting, I'm playing for eye candy and story.

I guess it's different for everyone, but drops into the low 50s and below look really jarring to me even if I turn motion blur on. I try to never have my game capable of a steady 90 fps, if it can do that it means my settings are too low. But those games are few and far between for what I play when it comes to new games at 1080p, pretty much the only newer game I have that a 970 can run at 1080p ultra 90+ fps is COD AW. For that I downsample from 1440p for the best image quality while maintaining 60 fps.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

But it wouldn't look as bad if you have G/F sync... also I would guess that in most cases 1440p/high is better looking than 1080p/ultra (just guessing, I've never used 1440p).

If I was going to dump that kind of money into a monitor I'd have a much more powerful setup than a single 970 though. And I don't want to be an early adopter for those adaptive sync technologies, one of them is going to die off.

 

[moonbogg]

I just went from 27" 1080p to 27" 1440p. The difference is significant. When I look at the 1080p screen it looks really grainy and cheap and crappy looking from the huge pixels. It looks like a LEGO projector.

 

[tential]

I guess it's different for everyone, but drops into the low 50s and below look really jarring to me even if I turn motion blur on. I try to never have my game capable of a steady 90 fps, if it can do that it means my settings are too low. But those games are few and far between for what I play when it comes to new games at 1080p, pretty much the only newer game I have that a 970 can run at 1080p ultra 90+ fps is COD AW. For that I downsample from 1440p for the best image quality while maintaining 60 fps.

I mean that's not too bad then. I'm at 45-50 fps sometimes and close to 60 fps most times.

When cheap 4k vsr capable cards from amd come I'll move to 4k vsr. For now though I just put up with the fps until I see a card worth getting for the games I play (old).

 

[rancherlee]

I use both 27" 1080p and 25" 1440p screens quite a bit, actually prefer the 1080p just because the screen is bigger. My screens are always 3.5-4' away from me as I find it cuts down on eye fatigue and at that distance 1080p, definitely don't see "Lego bricks" and according to my recent eye exam I still have 20/20 vision. I'd take 1080p Ultra over 1440 medium any day.

 

[Innokentij]

I would NOT take a 1440p monitor on 970GTX, had that paired with 780TI OC'ed to 1200MHz on core and it would not let me play at max settings, even with 980TI at 1500MHz core it struggles in some games cause of nvidia gameworks is broken POS that should be banned or opened up cause in current state is NOT usefull.

 

[Insomniator]

I would NOT take a 1440p monitor on 970GTX, had that paired with 780TI OC'ed to 1200MHz on core and it would not let me play at max settings, even with 980TI at 1500MHz core it struggles in some games cause of nvidia gameworks is broken POS that should be banned or opened up cause in current state is NOT usefull.

Who cares if its not max settings? What if there was a setting above max called super duper, where there was 1 more blade of grass on the screen but gave you half the FPS... would you then buy GPU's until you could run on super duper?

I'm just saying I've played games on high and ultra and rarely tell the difference, I suspect the overall quality of the panel and resolution would be more noticeable than high vs max in most games.

 

[4K_shmoorK]

I would NOT take a 1440p monitor on 970GTX, had that paired with 780TI OC'ed to 1200MHz on core and it would not let me play at max settings, even with 980TI at 1500MHz core it struggles in some games cause of nvidia gameworks is broken POS that should be banned or opened up cause in current state is NOT usefull.

Gameworks works fine, hairworks TW3 and other bad implementations are just that. Bad implementations. I love the way HBAO+ looks, and it works flawlessly on any game I've used it on.

The games that the 980Ti 'struggles' with are games that lesser single gpu cards 'quiver at the sight of'. The last 10 years of PC hardware have allowed us to come this far already (1440p 4xMSAA 16xFXAA 60+FPS with a single sub-$1000 card).

Anyways, I would definitely use a 970 for 1440p gaming. but if you want to keep the settings cranked, don't buy a panel without freesync/gsymc

 

[Innokentij]

Gameworks dont work fine at all, TSW TXAA broken all washed out screen even if they patched it once already, FC4 Broken Godrays lowering fps to 40 and if u turn it off 120 TXAA also broken and washes out screen, TW3 Hairworks broken to hell, works fine in FC4 go figure, GTA 5 Nvidia shadows looks like quake 1 in software mode the list goes on. Telling me nvidia gameworks is fine, u either have lower standards then me or u trolling me good?

 

[tential]

Who cares if its not max settings? What if there was a setting above max called super duper, where there was 1 more blade of grass on the screen but gave you half the FPS... would you then buy GPU's until you could run on super duper?

I'm just saying I've played games on high and ultra and rarely tell the difference, I suspect the overall quality of the panel and resolution would be more noticeable than high vs max in most games.

Didn't even know crysis wasn't on max settings and infinite too when I first fired them up. You shouldn't just set max settings like a lot of people do. Settings have diminishing returns set them in their sweet spot.

 

[tential]

Gameworks dont work fine at all, TSW TXAA broken all washed out screen even if they patched it once already, FC4 Broken Godrays lowering fps to 40 and if u turn it off 120 TXAA also broken and washes out screen, TW3 Hairworks broken to hell, works fine in FC4 go figure, GTA 5 Nvidia shadows looks like quake 1 in software mode the list goes on. Telling me nvidia gameworks is fine, u either have lower standards then me or u trolling me good?

It's clearly not fine. But it works. People are upgrading to sli 1k setups just to max out all settings including gameworks.

Will be interesting to see when gameworks pushes pascal and leaves maxwell in the dust. I'm wary of nvidia now but if gameworks screws maxwell then I will stay away from the brand.

My recommendation regarding gameworks games is to wait for them to be patches, don't turn on the features (unless you're a 30 fps console type player who isn't fps sensitive Then just lock at 30 fps and enjoy) and to not focus or worry about upgrading around a gameworks feature.

 

[ImpulsE69]

I just went from 27" 1080p to 27" 1440p. The difference is significant. When I look at the 1080p screen it looks really grainy and cheap and crappy looking from the huge pixels. It looks like a LEGO projector.

What monitor did you go with? I'm currently looking to upgrade from my 27" 1080p 2ms. I just got a 290x - so I've been eying the Freesync monitors, but I think most of them are ugly.